URLs that start with https://www.google

General Privacy & Security
1

I should probably know this, but…

Sometimes on various websites I see people have posted URLs that start with https://www.google(dot)com followed by the actual destination URL.

Example: https://www.google(dot) com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.att.com

Where do links like this come from? (I automatically assume they must provide some juicy tracking data to Gulag.)

2

Not totally sure, but I guess it’s a external link on Google website. But you don’t get into att(dot)com directly … first you get to another Google page which redirects you to the external web. When people right click and copy link location, they don’t copy the external page, but the Google redirection page.

I also think it has to do with tracking like Amazon with “…/ref=…”. Another reason I want to see and maybe edit links on QR-Codes before enter these.

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3

I thought those had to do with Google AMP but could be wrong.

See: https://www.howtogeek.com/284166/what-is-google-amp-and-why-is-it-in-my-search-results/

It looks like they’re stepping away from AMP though if it is that, good news: https://plausible.io/blog/google-amp

4

Never heard about it before. But amaroks example link looks totally different to the example link of the first article you shared (howtogeek) where you have “…/amp/…” inside. Again, I’m not totally sure. It just looks like to me …

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5

Yeah that’s why Im not sure but thought I’d join in just in case. Interested to see what the answer is!

6

The only thing I’m sure of is that it’s something to be hated.
:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

2 Likes
7

I guess people are posting a search result? Or maybe (I don’t know, I don’t use chrome) if you type a website’s address into chrome it automatically redirects through google, presumably so google can track it. Just a guess though.

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8

This sounds most plausible but I don’t know either.

9

Really? I thought Chrome collects data directly from browser and don’t need redirection pages to track. But what do I know, never used Chrome so far.

10

I don’t either, its just a guess, but redirecting through google would add one more collection point. Can’t have too many of those!

1 Like